Yours for Christmas
by Maithduine
Summary: It's Christmas Eve, and Bulma has a surprise for Vegeta.Can he understand what this gift means to her?


Disclaimer: If I owned DBZ, this would be an episode and not just a fan fiction, oh well. I tried not to make this TOO out of character, this takes place after the Buu saga, for time reference. Enjoy!  
  
Bulma sank in to the couch with a sigh. The presents were under the tree, Trunks was fast asleep, and Vegeta had locked himself in the gravity room. It looked like it would be a typical Christmas at the Briefs' house. She smirked as the muscle bound man she called a mate came to mind. Christmas was about love, caring about your fellow man, and peace on earth. Therefore it was no surprise his royal highness distanced himself from the Yuletide cheer. This year however, she was going to let him get away with it entirely.  
  
BAM  
  
"Here it comes," she thought as the backdoor slammed. A dark figure loomed over her.  
  
"Woman, what is the meaning of this?" asked Vegeta, holding out a small box, the paper already ripped off and hanging from tape on the bottom. Inside sat a gold band on a gold chain.  
  
"Merry Christmas sweetheart," Bulma smiled up at him. He didn't move and she sighed. "I really didn't expect you to even come out of the gravity room, I was hoping you'd just put it on and let it slide, making awkward explanations like this one unnecessary."  
  
"You try my patience woman, answer the question!" he growled with irritation. "You have interrupted my training, and forcing me to enter during this, unpleasant, tradition of yours."  
  
"Well the meaning, basically, is I'm marking you." With that she brushed past him for the kitchen leaving a confused Saiyn behind her. She began to prepare two mugs of hot chocolate as she waited. "3, 2, 1."  
  
"What do you mean marking me? This is not how one marks their mate!" the prince questioned, entering the kitchen with a puzzled and aggravated expression.  
  
Bulma jerked the collar of her shirt down baring a scar on her neck. "The night Trunks was conceived you made me yours, and marked me the way Saiyns do, warning off all other men away from me. The problem dear, is that I've seen you go slamming into the ground at 100 miles per hour and fly away without a scratch, so it's no surprise that hard as I've tried, I have never left a dent on that beautiful neck of yours!"  
  
He was taken aback. He'd of course felt the pressure as she dug her teeth into his neck that night, and on a few nights since then, but he had never known she'd really thought about the ritual that seriously. "Woman," he spoke softly.  
  
"No Vegeta, it's alright, I realized my limitations as a human long ago, and it's never been about proving my strength to you in this relationship. You be the strong one, I'll be the brains. It's how we work. But, I need to know that I'm not just your possession, with no love of my own. Now in Saiyn tradition, you get bit, so I allowed that to happen. Now I'm asking you to follow human tradition. A ring. Now I've thought this through, and I understand a ring wouldn't work for you, throwing balls of energy wouldn't exactly wear well on the metal. That's why the chain is there, you can wear it without it getting in the way of your fighting, and you can drop it down your shirt, no one needs to know it's there, just as long as I know. Do you understand?"  
  
Throughout this speech Bulma had been speaking faster and faster, terrified of what Vegeta would say to all of this. Would he want to marked as belonging to someone else? Did he care enough to accept what this meant? "Woman," he spoke again, and she was forced to look at him. He unfastened the clasp and handed the two ends of the chain to her, bending down slightly.  
  
Tears ran down her face as she took the chain with shaky hands. "With this ring, I thee wed," she whispered leaning in to put it around his neck. "For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall." she stopped, remembering what Vegeta had told her about bonding in his culture.  
  
"Beyond life, beyond death, a bond is forever Woman, it is a seal no force known to the heavens can break." He had told her as she lay in his arms one night. Well then the vows needed an edit.  
  
"For all of eternity," she finished, snapping the clasp into place.  
  
"Does this mean I get to kiss the bride?" her husband asked with a smirk.  
  
"You damn well better mister," she sniffed with a smile as she was swept into a deep and passionate kiss. "So does this mean you approve of your first Christmas present?" she asked as they came up for air.  
  
"This holiday is full of sentimentality and traditions that make no sense," he muttered. He looked her in the eyes. "But then I seem to be getting used to such things."  
  
He handed his wife her hot chocolate and they walked back into the living room. Sitting on the couch, Bulma curled up next to him, he smirked and wrapped an arm around her. Ten years ago he would have killed anyone who dared get that close, but these days he lived on a safe world with a son asleep in his bed and a marked mate who cared enough about him to make sure he knew that their bond was not one sided. The Christmas tree twinkled in front of him and made him ponder this holiday. It seemed to mean so much to this woman, that people celebrate peace and love, things he once despised, but now he seemed to not only tolerate them, but embrace them. He glanced down to find her asleep. Setting his mug down he swept her into his arms and paused, allowing her to snuggle deeper into his embrace. He carried the blue haired beauty into the bedroom and lay her between the sheets, then paused to remove his boots and shirt before he lay down next to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. He fingered his "mark," and smiled to himself, imagining the woman's surprise when she would find him still there Christmas morning. "Merry Christmas woman," he murmured, allowing sleep to overtake him. 


End file.
